Sony And SGI Collaborate On High-Definition Demonstrations At NAB

Sony and SGI are collaborating on bringing real-time HD connectivity between the Sony digital High Definition production system and the SGI family of graphics workstations and servers. These include both the SMPTE 274M (standards) 60Hz interlaced system and the recently announced 24 frame progressive HD production system.At Sonyís main booth during the National Association of Broeadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas last week, an Onyx2 workstation was showcased sporting 24P native HD computer-created graphics into the Sony 24P switcher ñ in a simulated HD production control environment using Discreet frostÆ. This real-time serial interface was via the 1080P/ 24sF (segmented Frame) format. SGI has made a breakthrough development of a real-time digital HD interface card that takes the 1920x1080 HD video format directly into their Onyx2 workstations and Origin servers via the SMPTE 292M 1.5Gbps (gigabites per second) serial digital interface (HD-SDI). Discreet HDCAMÆ software for encode/decode makes Onyx2 output an HD signal.""The flexibility to work in multiple high definition formats ñ including 24sF ñ was part of our design goal, and our engineering and marketing teams are working closely with Sony to bring these new solutions to the market,"" said Greg Estes, General Manager, Digital Media Solutions, SGI. ""SGI is excited to be working with Sony in helping our customers make the transition to high-definition.""Separately, at the Sony Demonstration Center on the NAB show floow, SGI systems were featured in the Sony HD ""Vialta"" telecine area with two real-time interfaces linking film transfer to computer storage and data recording applications systems. One HD interface showed the HD ""Vialta"" Telecine delivering a real-time HD 60 interlace feed directly into an Octane workstation where a number of operations such as inverse 3:2, color-space conversion and special effects can be performed using Discreet flint.The second showed a real-time HD-SDI interface from the same ""Vialta"" telecine to a Sierra Designs DDR that, in turn, output the HD video via fast-SCSI to an SGI Octane workstation. The Octane translates the video format into data files that can be recorded on a Sony DTF data recorder. These data files can then be operated on by a number of commonly used professional applications running in SGI computers for special effects, image manipulation, film restoration, etc. Thus, all of the key bridges presently sought by the post-production community were demonstrated.""The industry has long awaited the arrival of real-time High Definition video transfer between the HD Telecine and the computer,"" said Michael Vitelli, Executive Vice President of Sony Electronicsí Broadcast and Professional Company. ""Now, with SGIís breakthrough, not only can real-time video formats be interconnected, but true HD film transfer can be translated to data files for processing and storage. A new efficiency in HD post has been born.""